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Home / Opinions / EDITORIAL: Decisions will have to be made, as football heads to DI no scholarships

EDITORIAL: Decisions will have to be made, as football heads to DI no scholarships

Wed, 11/29/2017 - 12:43pmVic MacDonald

Since PC is going to de-emphasize football, can these players transfer now and not have to sit out a year? Juniors, we could see staying. Freshmen? We are not at all sure about them, and what they see as their best interest. As a side note, PC men’s basketball player DeSean Murray decided to transfer to Auburn a couple seasons back.

There could be more, but we venture to say at least 100 people have some serious thinking to do about Presbyterian College.

First, there are 50 football players, their parents and guardians who have to consider transfer. It may come down, ultimately, to a NCAA ruling.

Since PC is going to de-emphasize football, can these players transfer now and not have to sit out a year? Juniors, we could see staying. Freshmen? We are not at all sure about them, and what they see as their best interest.

As a side note, PC men’s basketball player DeSean Murray decided to transfer to Auburn a couple seasons back. He sat out, and then Auburn got embroiled in the FBI investigation of men’s college basketball (allegedly, coaches paying players). No one has been convicted of anything, and Sports Illustrated says Murray is a player to watch in Auburn’s play this season, with a Southeastern Conference title in the Tigers’ aim.

All that is to say, it seems to be working out for Murray. Though, perhaps, not for PC, which sees its best player a few hundred miles away, not contributing to the Blue Hose 2017-18 season, which already is underway.

Football players now have to make Murray’s same decision - stay, where the playing time could be plentiful (big fish in a small pond) or go, where a really strong commitment to a full-fledged and on-going NCAA Division I program is demonstrated by a college or university not much larger - or, perhaps, much larger - than Presbyterian College.

Second, there are PC donors, and probably more than 50. Some have expressed that they never again will give money to the college - nor are they judging the people who will continue their giving. Others have expressed that now is absolutely the wrong time to stop giving money to the college. “The Promise of PC” will remain unfulfilled without money. Herein lies the reason so many people have decisions to make concerning the South Broad Street, Clinton, campus.

THE PROMISE ... a strategic plan.

Anyone who has been in an institution or business knows this, when a strategic plan is considered, EVERYTHING is on the table for review. Problem is, PC started talking about the NEED FOR a strategic plan in 2016, and now that it’s just about 2018, people are learning that plan does not bring Big South membership for football along with it. All PC would say in the run-up was “It’s been vetted,” “It’s going to be for the best,” and “Talk about The Pioneer League is premature.”

On the afternoon of Sunday, November 19, 2017, it became “premature” no longer.

That fact alone was enough to allow steam to vent from the closed Facebook group On, On PC!

Now that the “season of rage” has drawn to a near-close - with Blue Hose Football playing its best, most complete game of the season in a 31-21 win over Gardner-Webb - those PC backers who see in “The Promise of PC” nothing more than “secrecy” and “lack of transparency” and “a violation of the honor code” have no reason to come back to the Nation.

No reason other than, they sincerely want the best for their alma mater.

We hate to write an Editorial that is wishy-washy; however, these are very personal decisions - ones that we can offer advice about but, ultimately, depend on what is in one’s own heart - and in one’s own pocketbook.

We know that the College’s and Clinton’s futures are tied together. That’s as undeniably true as things stand now, approaching 2018, as it was at the college’s founding in 1880. One veteran Blue Hose asked us recently, “Who owns Presbyterian College?” as in, if everything there went at a fire sale, who would be entitled to the money. That kind of “for better or worse” town-gown tie gives us sobering thoughts. While we live, we hope, things are headed for the better.